


i can be your coleslaw

by ithinkilikeyou



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Post-Canon, joke ship, weirdly serious tone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:27:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24758533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ithinkilikeyou/pseuds/ithinkilikeyou
Summary: During her wanderings, Toph visits a town with a suspicious number of cabbage merchants.
Relationships: Toph Beifong/Cabbage Man
Kudos: 2





	i can be your coleslaw

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome! I wrote this for a friend and decided to share here because why not. It's weird.
> 
> c/w sex happens in this fic, it is consensual but a bit uncomfy so feel free to skip.

It was late when Toph got into town. She had been walking for a long time, and the town’s dumpy inn was a place she normally wouldn’t have considered staying, but she was exhausted and just needed a bed. Plus, the place had earth floors, which meant she’d be able to keep watch. Though things were safe now in the Earth Kingdom, she had never quite shaken the nerves of sleeping alone on the road.

Toph opened the door, greeting a drowsy middle-aged woman behind the counter. The two stumbled through a transaction as quickly as their fuzzy brains could manage, and Toph only just had time to put down her pack before she collapsed into sleep.

\---

She woke in the morning to the ungodly loud shout of a vegetable seller outside, peddling his wares to the town at dawn, for some reason. “Aughhhhh,” Toph groaned to herself, “Motherfucker”. She lay in bed for a few more minutes before giving up hope of more sleep.

Toph could feel there were people in the kitchen, so she went in search of some breakfast, or at least some tea. If she had to be up this early the least they could do was offer her some caffeine (She held out no hope the tea would be as good as Gramps’, but something more than leaf juice would be nice). Luckily, the inn’s cooking staff was already bustling, though the cafeteria was notably empty, and Toph received a quick service of both a passable green tea and a plate of breakfast.

As she ate, she spent some time thinking about where to go next. Toph had been wandering for many years now, bouncing between her friends scattered across the world, and searching for masters to spar. She was serious about becoming the best earthbender of all time, and to do so she needed to learn to fight both bending and non-bending opponents. Her parents, though she’d earned their respect, still expected something more traditional for her future, and Toph had never been interested in that type of life. Still, it had been many months (years?) since she had visited home, and this village couldn’t be too far. 

She finished eating her fried egg and cabbage, a breakfast she’d never had before but greatly enjoyed, poured another cup of tea, and resolved to stay here another day before setting for home. Toph would need some time to prepare: get a haircut, wash her clothes, do all those things she didn’t much care for but her parents did.   
Toph asked the woman behind the counter (looking, if at all possible, even more sleepy than last night) for recommendations and headed out the door with a comment to “find Foshi, she’ll know what to do”.

It was still early so Toph decided to walk a bit, maybe get to the outskirts and do some earthbending drills, instead of trying to find someone likely still asleep. Walking up the main street, she noticed that the vast majority of the other people out were vegetable sellers, rolling their carts. Toph thought this was odd, as the town’s economy couldn’t possibly support that many vegetable merchants, but maybe this was an agricultural trading center.

She spent the morning bending, getting carried away in her connection with the rocks and the power that coursed through her. Toph always felt good, strong, when she was bending, and it helped center her, which she needed before visiting her family. As she walked back into town, she could feel the sun high on her face, and realized she’d been out longer than anticipated. And she was hungry.

“Cabbages, cabbages, get your cabbages here!”

Toph flagged down the cabbage merchant, staunchly refusing to buy a whole cabbage, instead asking if he knew where she could find Foshi.

“Foshi? The Cabbage Lord’s daughter? Sure I do, she should be in the garden at the big house over there.” He pointed towards the other end of town from where Toph had walked in, where sure enough, she could feel a large garden surrounding a modest-size house (where she came from, but it was the largest house in this village).

“Thanks, man! Hey, where can I get some lunch?”

The cabbage merchant shepherded her into a cafe around the corner, where she ate okonomiyaki and bantered with the waitress. The food left her feeling energized, so she was in a good mood when she finally got to the garden and found Foshi, hands in the dirt.

“Hello, are you Foshi? The innkeeper sent me. I’m going to see my parents and I need to make myself look like a proper daughter, for their sake you know. Don’t want to give my mom an aneurysm. She said you could help?”

Foshi stood up and brushed her hands off on her apron. “Sure thing! Let me go rinse off and then I’ll grab my sister and we can get to work with you. She’s great at this kind of thing.” Toph had the uncomfortable feeling Foshi was giving her a once-over. “Uh, maybe you should come rinse too?” she said, tentatively.

Toph laughed, forgetting she had been earthbending that morning, which always made her look a sight. “Of course, I’ll follow you.”

\---

She had a great afternoon with Foshi and her sister. It reminded her of the time Katara had taken her to the spa in Ba Sing Se, but Toph had become more comfortable with that sort of thing over time, even if it wasn’t her first choice activity. Plus, even she could admit it felt great to be clean and taken care of sometimes. The sisters invited her to stay for dinner, noting that the Cabbage Lord served the best feasts in town, and she simply must have one great meal before moving on.

So she stayed and ate dish after dish, hosted by the Cabbage Lord, and slowly realized every single course had cabbage in it. They started with a spicy cabbage soup and cabbage slaw, ate their way through kimchi fried rice and sauerkraut stuffed pierogies, and even dessert, a little cake, was served inside a cabbage leaf. Toph liked cabbage just fine, but this was excessive, in her opinion. Still, the food was excellent, and the company quite good.

As the meal wound down, she found herself asking why, exactly, did they eat so much cabbage? And why did that seem to be the only food in town?

The Cabbage Lord smiled, sadly. “During the last few years of the war, I was a traveling cabbage seller, with a cart much like the ones you observed in this town. I loved that job. It allowed me to see the world and support my family, and I was feeding people. Yet, misfortune seemed to follow me. Over and over again, my cart was destroyed, my cabbages ruined, my business set back to start from scratch. I suffered immensely during that time. When the Avatar ended the war, all I wanted was some stability, somewhere I could protect myself, my family, and my cabbages.

“I came here, to this town, and found the soil particularly fertile. I built this home with my hands, and enlisted my daughters here to help me farm the land. Those first years were very difficult, more so than anything I’d experienced on the road. We almost gave up. But finally, we had a successful crop, so successful that cabbage merchants from across the Earth Kingdom came here to buy our product and transport it to our customers. In this town, we are proud people, because we’ve built a living on the back of the humble cabbage.”

Toph was not a person who cried, but she found herself moved at the Cabbage Lord’s story. She remembered traveling through the Earth Kingdom with the Avatar, and the destruction that they left in their path. Back then, they’d thought nothing of it, focused single-mindedly on their goal, but as an adult she’d been back to some of the places they had visited and she’d found similar stories, the joy and stability of the war ending mixed with exhaustion, pain, and loss.

After the meal, she retired to the den with the Cabbage Lord, hoping to apologize for her friends’ carelessness, when he put a hand on her knee. Toph jumped a bit, the touch unexpected but not unwelcome. 

“It’s always nice to meet a young person interested in history,” he said, rubbing her leg absent-mindedly. “Thank you for coming here, I think my daughters much enjoyed your company.”

Toph giggled. She was not a giggler, but she’d met enough men to know most were disconcerted by her usual cackle, and she knew what she was getting herself into. Plus, the comment wasn’t actually funny. “Of course, thank you for having me in your home.” Toph loved this dance, the give and take, especially with rich men who thought they knew her.

The Cabbage Lord put his arm around her, and leaned in to her ear. “How about you stay the night? Get away from that inn.”

“I’d like that.” Toph was nearly purring, unrecognizable from her usual self. She reached out to touch his arm. “Where do you want me?”

The Cabbage Lord led Toph to the master bedroom, paneled with dark wood and furnished with linens the rich color of a red cabbage. She kissed him first, meaning to prove that she was the one in control of the situation, and quickly discovered she was right. The Cabbage Lord was an old man, unused to young women showing interest in him, and Toph used this to take her pleasure, feeling nearly as powerful as when she dropped a boulder on an enemy. He could barely keep up with her, but that was okay, she didn’t really need it, and she made sure he got his, when she was done.

She fell in bed next to the Cabbage Lord, who was still out of breath. “Thanks for that,” she said, her voice back to its regular tone. He just shook his head, and in a few minutes, when he could speak again, the Cabbage Lord said “You’re the one who took pity on an old man. I haven’t done that since my wife died, and I know I’m clumsy and out of practice.”

Toph, feeling soft again, kissed him on the cheek. She could afford some kindness, since she didn’t expect to return to this place. And soon, she dropped into sleep.

\---

Toph woke at an early hour, again, though this time she was thankful she’d be able to slip away unnoticed. She needed to head back to the inn to pick up her things before she went on to her parents’ place. As she dressed and slipped out of the Cabbage Lord’s home, she decided, in a fit of mischief, to take a few cabbages from the garden. She didn’t want to eat cabbage again for a long time, but maybe her parents would appreciate them.

As she plucked them and snuck out the gate, the Cabbage Lord jolted out of bed, and yelled “NOT MY CABBAGES!”


End file.
